Efficacy of reflexology in managing chronic pain and difficulty in lower limb movement involving intractable epilepsy

Abstract

This study aims at estimating the efficacy of reflexology in managing pain under 4 diseased conditions viz., mastalgia, osteoarthritis, neuropathy with type-II diabetic mellitus and lower limb pain involving intractable epilepsy. The efficiency of reflexology was determined in terms of improvement of pain score, quality of life and the other associated symptoms. The sample size of the randomized clinical trials is 220. The control group patients (N=118) received conventional medicines and study group patients (N=102) received reflexology in addition. Reflexology was administered to the patients by their caregivers at their own places. An initial period of 2½ – 3 months was devoted for (a) training the caregivers and (b) monitoring the quality control of compliances. Follow up period started after this duration. In each category of the ailments, the patients were distributed into two groups blindly through random number generation. The data records were collected prior to the therapy, intermittent and at the end of follow up period. The functional statuses of the internal organs were diagnosed using reflexology method so that all the study group patients could be treated holistically. The data were analyzed statistically and compared. It was observed that there are at least two fold improvements in the pain management, quality of life and other symptoms with statistically significant values. The results of these trials lead to conclude that reflexology in addition to or alone may offer a holistic therapy in pain management with least cost and insignificant side effects.